Not every script is a winner, but you still have to play it like it’s Shakespeare.
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We opened Anything Goes fewer than forty-eight hours after Emily from the electric company made good on her promise to give us light. With all the parade hoopla, the light event, and the general buzz, we were sold out that night. This was terrific, but there was no joy for me that evening. The show in my opinion, not shared by the actors or audience, was shaky at best. I chalked it up to the whirlwind ride of the past few days, or fatigue, the lack of tech time on the changeover to a new show, or just a natural predictable slump. Even Ted Williams took an 0-4 on occasion. I gave specific notes after the performance and thought tomorrow would return to normal.
It didn’t.
I found it interesting and somewhat disturbing that even at our young ages, and with little to no professional experience, the actors started to behave like many of the great stars whose bios I had read across the years. They retained their zeal, but now it carried a hint of rebellion. In small, subtle ways they were saying, “I’m good. Don’t bother me with being Joe DiMaggio.” The girls were divas and the guys were . . . well, what is the equivalent of a diva? Assholes!
None of us had written the songs or lived the birth of the original Broadway material. True, I wanted commitment from everyone and I was getting it, but the focus was distorted, becoming about “me.” This was summer stock and it was supposed to be fun. Yet the notes of the previous evening went unheeded, and rehearsals that day brought unnecessary tensions, at times taking us to the precipice of verbal fisticuffs. I had little patience for it all.
On the heels of our instant celebrity, the Patriot Ledger, the paper covering the four corners of the Cape, assigned a big-time reporter to spend the day at the theater, to attend rehearsals and become acquainted with the company. The reporter, Marc Seconds, had seen the closing of Cabaret and the opening of Anything Goes, so he was up to speed on recent events. He was a nice-looking, midthirties professorial type wearing fashionably beaten-up jeans and a faded-pink poplin shirt. He wore his hair in a buzz cut and had thin wire-rimmed glasses. Seconds was pleasant and complimented everything he had seen so far. He also was clearly smitten with Carol Duteau, a young lady with the fabulous breasts we had cast out of Yale. It turned out Seconds was an “Eli” himself.
It is always dangerous for someone outside the rehearsal process to sit in as a guest. An actor’s instinct is to please the audience, and when a stranger is present actors often “perform” rather than use the rehearsal to prepare. They press. Jokes become forced and fail to land, pacing becomes disjointed, and beats linger long enough for a truck to drive through. Confidence diminishes. Insecurities mount, and dental surgery up your ass becomes a more attractive option then continuing.
We weren’t putting on Chekhov or Strindberg or even Arthur Miller. We were presenting a thirties fluff musical with a sensational score and a storyline as deep as a wading pool. Nevertheless, if an actor mugged for a false laugh or didn’t invest in the character’s dilemma, then it was all a sham. The audience tunes out, and what is supposed to be froth and fun becomes, well, stupid and boring.
There were three things on the punch list that morning. If we could fix them quickly we could exponentially improve on our next performance and get to work on our next show instead of reviewing the one now in performance.
Near the end of Act One was a series of four entrances and exits that piggybacked on each other. The laughs were in the visual, a sequence of rapid-fire exits and entrances that forced the eye to follow the joke. Unless they were timed correctly, they lay like a pancake with each subsequent joke working hard to cover the failure of its predecessor.
I explained the concept, which was not difficult and had worked quite well in rehearsal. But when the sequence played in front of an audience, each entrance and exit was extended for no other reason than to get an additional titter. Now the whole thing didn’t work. It was selfish, and after thirty minutes of running the bit to no benefit, I asked harshly what the fuck was going on. No one had an answer because to give one was to admit their lack of commitment to the show and the pettiness of their actions. I told them in no uncertain terms that it sucked and then moved on. Tension was palpable and the reporter from the Patriot Ledger was at the ready with a quill dipped in venom-laced ink.
The next bit of business involved our sixteen-year-old mop-headed young star, Ronny Feston. Six weeks ago he would have blown the Boston Patriots for this gig, and now he was Marlon Brando. He had a small scene in which he played a stowaway conning the show’s comedic lead in a game of craps. It was screamingly funny. Feston was adorable, and his cadence and use of his body were impeccable. He played the scene with Secunda, who amped it up. It was our version of Laurel and Hardy.
But when a gag works to perfection, less is more. Feston, though, milked it, stretching it out to the point where it was vulgar and mean-spirited and all about him. He left Secunda to pick up his shit and stopped the momentum of the escalating laughter, all but bringing it to a halt. Ronny was a kid, and perhaps he didn’t understand, so we discussed it. He still resisted. Vociferously. He wanted his laugh.
I explained that Jerry Lewis had written that “comedy is a man in trouble.” Once a character’s jeopardy is gone, the dilemma is no longer funny. Feston remained adamant. Rather than have a confrontation, I called a ten-minute break.
I was livid and called Jojo over for a talk. “What is this bullshit? You’re the fucking stage manager and this stuff has been rehearsed and set. We don’t have time or energy to play fucking Stanislavsky this afternoon. All of a sudden they get some laughs and some kudos and they think they’re fucking Charlie Chaplin. You end it now. You tell that little imp that if this continues, he can call his mom to pick him up and take him home yesterday.”
I said all of this in front of Marc Seconds; he was taking notes so fast his pen seemed propelled by nuclear power. I pulled Jojo out of his earshot and added, “You want this shit in the paper? Fix this, damn it!”
It was clear that Jojo wasn’t too pleased with me. “Five minutes,” she shouted. “Company on stage in five minutes.” Then she pulled Feston off to the left wing and ripped him a new face.
The last thing I wanted to fix was a scene with Zach Rush and Mary Holly, who played the young lovers in the show. They sang a beautiful Porter ballad in Act Two, and they had been terrific around the piano and in rehearsal. Yet the greed for a laugh had gotten to them as well; they’d sung it on opening night without any sense of stakes, as if their love affair mattered not at all. They’d mugged for the cheap laugh, and no one cared because their characters didn’t.
I gave the note. Elliot ran the song. They played it correctly, and all was good. Reason had returned.
“Notes after lunch,” Jojo announced. “We’ll meet on the deck in forty-five minutes. Kasen has tech notes to fix and needs the stage. After notes we start rehearsing Funny Girl.”
For the moment we were done.
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I studiously avoided Marc Seconds during break. I knew when we let him into our inner sanctum he’d get to see it all, both the good and the bad.
This morning he had seen a bit of both. Now I wondered what spin he’d put on what he had learned. Was he a decent guy or a prick?
Distraction would be a good remedy, so I hoped he’d find his way to a seat next to Carol Duteau and we’d all have a better face on for his article after some fresh air and sandwiches. Marc was smart and smooth; within minutes he was talking up Carol who seemed a bit flustered by all the attention. They weren’t talking sports.
I raced to my room and changed into a swimsuit. It was a dry summer day, nearly ninety degrees. The sun lit the brilliant sky, which reflected off the ocean creating an enormous canvas of perfect endless sapphire. Practically sprinting toward the sea, I dove in and swam. I pulled through the water for minutes before taking a breath. The moment was bracing and cleans
ing. I was eager to get back to work and push beyond the mounting misery of the early morning.
As I headed back to the compound, Veronica was waiting with a lush terry-cloth towel and asked that I sit with her and take a breath. We sat close on the sand. She wore a lilac sundress and her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. She wore no makeup. Her eyes matched the sea, and her skin was smooth and silky like rich Egyptian cotton.
“You okay, baby?” she asked. “Tough day so far. Silly, really.”
I stared into the horizon and ran my fingers against her thigh, an elixir for anxiety. “That guy from the paper seems decent.” I said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to do my job and give my notes and make our show better.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What if the stuff from this morning doesn’t go away?”
“Since when did Iago join the company? Sometimes I think we just have to play the game by instinct. I’m going to kiss you because I like to and then I’ll see where the day leads.”
After we kissed, Veronica told me that I had five phone messages from this morning.
“The building inspector is coming by at nine a.m. Sidney is coming by for support. The fabulous Golden family is also stopping by tomorrow for a chat. A Mr. Colon called. And best of all, the police called.”
“Any of that sound good to you?”
“Not one bit,” she answered with a smile.
I was compelled to kiss her again. “Sidney could be good,” I said.
“Sidney is always good. It’s just what accompanies his visits that sort of feels like someone is peeing in the punchbowl.”
“Can’t argue with that. What did the police have to say?”
“Ellie Foster was involved in a situation at the Moondog last night and Police Chief Warren wants you to drop by to discuss it before the end of the day.”
I stood up, took her hand and pulled her to my side. We walked back to the theater with our arms around each other’s waists, and she asked, “You hungry? Do you want me to make you something to eat?”
“No thanks. Too distracted. Preoccupied.”
“You wanna eat me?”
“If the offer holds till after rehearsal, I’m in.”
“Deal.”
Just as we left the beach, a seagull swooshed down and picked up a sand crab and swallowed it whole before it even began its ascent. I wondered who was having a worse morning, the crab or me.
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The cast and crew wandered onto the deck on time but lacking any urgency or verve. Some were still finishing their lunches and others who had been to Garden’s were nursing the last of an ice cream treat. I had told Veronica that we’d have to see what developed, but I was already formulating an approach.
Jojo called the rehearsal to order. I sat at the top of the steps that led to the balcony and spoke down to the company who sat randomly on the stairs and cross-legged on the deck. I enjoyed giving notes. I liked the back and forth of an idea and the commitment to making something work or setting it so it could mature. I complimented actors or dancers on little things, so they were rewarded for working on subtlety and acknowledged for their efforts. And if I was not sure why something was missing, I engaged the actors and my creative team to find a solution. Very rarely, if ever, was there an underlying tone of uncertainty, so of course I was unsettled that it existed today.
We were in uncharted territory, with no history of having worked through such vicissitudes in the past. The press was present, and members of the company—again for reasons unknown to me—wore chips on their shoulders. Clearly the next ten minutes would shine a light on or crush this brewing discontent. I spoke for several minutes. I tweaked certain beats, refreshed and rethought some small blocking, and ran line sequences in different tempos and cadences.
“Secunda, the stateroom scene. Every entrance has to be exactly the same, physically and in delivery. It’s funnier in threes.”
He nodded his assent.
“Mary, on ‘All Through the Night,’ don’t sing it to Billy, sing out to the house. It’s confusing if you sing to him. I mean, he’s in jail and you’re not.”
She scribbled the note into a little journal.
“Kat, you’re starting ‘Kick’ too blue. You’re playing a chanteuse, not Billie Holliday. Lighten up the beginning and it will make the finish stronger.”
“Got it, boss,” she said spiritedly.
“ASK, you are killing the laugh on the ‘hot pants’ line. Let the laugh happen and then do the take.”
“Shit, I thought I had that right,” he replied.
I gave dozens more notes, and the energy was good. I asked Elliot to give music notes and had Ellie give hers to the dancers. I discussed a quick change with Jojo that had been bungled, and we worked out a different approach so we wouldn’t have to go to black. I was feeling that we were back on track.
Feelings lie.
I returned to the two scenes we had rehearsed earlier in the day. The problematic one with Feston, and the keystone cop visual that had played so poorly.
It all went up in an instant. Feston was aggressive and said, “What I’m doing is funny and it should stay. I have to be comfortable, and you’re asking me to do something that doesn’t feel right. It’s your job as the director to make us feel good about what we are doing and be at ease.” With the other scene I also got attitude and similar bullshit from the ensemble members about their comfort zone and their belief in what they had chosen to play.
I sat and listened. My heart beat faster, but I didn’t reveal what I was thinking; I let the whole thing settle. I gave all in attendance the chance to add a final thought or retract the foolishness that had just been proffered. I looked to Secunda, Elliot, Ellie, and Jojo, and gave them time to chime in with anything useful. I was stunned and I was furious.
We could all hear the chatter from inside the house where Kasen was working with the crew on fixing some tech problems. The box office phone rang at least once a minute, and we could hear orders being taken, although the words were garbled and we didn’t know what nights or the number of tickets ordered. Louis and the band were rehearsing outside on the deck behind the red house, their music clear and cheerful. Marc Seconds looked only at his yellow pad, making eye contact with no one.
After another few moments of the unsaid hanging in the air, I began to speak. I was measured at first, but soon found myself snowballing and throwing a few haymakers. First to Feston. “It’s not my job to make you comfortable. You want that, then go to a resort and have them spritz you in the face when it’s hot and bring you an iced cocktail to put you at ease. What you’re doing is not funny. It’s bad, and that is no longer up for discussion. You know what some people think is funny?”
He offered no rely.
“How about dropping your pants and showing your ass? You think that might get a laugh? How about a big fucking loud fart? That might get a titter or make you look like a gross lowlife. You have two choices right now and I’m giving you one fucking second to tell me what you want to do. You choose to do what I tell you to do, and you do it with grace and manners, or you get the fuck out of here, and out of kindness I’ll give you the bus fare home.
“Now as to the rest of you who seem to want to reinvent the food chain of how notes get incorporated or directors are respected, I give you the same choice, but with less tolerance because you’re older than Ronnie and should be less stupid. Know that I respect all of you. I hired all of you and until this morning when someone put something in your coffee, I had only pleasure in working with you.
“You’re tired. So am I. You feel unappreciated. Tough shit. Go home. I’ll have fifty people from Boston in before you get packed to leave. You want to give the orders, then produce your own fucking show. You don’t like my notes or my direction,
then go direct your own fucking show. You don’t like me, well read The Fountainhead. The marquee says ‘Sam August Presents’ over the title and then it names me as the director. I have the right to expect my name to represent my work and what I think is good. Feston, you’re sixteen years old. Maybe that’s too young to do this. Maybe you should go write a book on how much more you know than me.”
I was humming now and surprised at the intensity of my vitriol. I was throwing body punches, not thinking of consequences.
“You know why you’re all here? Because Josh Secunda believed in this idea and put some skin in the game and I made a thousand phone calls. I found this place and with many of you, put it all into play, and because you are all good, but you’re not good enough unless you actually show up and get your heads out of your asses. All of a sudden you want to challenge my authority and me. Then go home right now. Those of you who stay, take the notes we worked on and put them in the show or I’ll send you home. No more discussion. We begin rehearsals for Funny Girl in ten minutes.”
I turned to Elliot. “Please begin with music and work with Ellie on the opening. I’ll be back in an hour, as I have an audience with the chief of police. Anyone want to give me notes on how to play that hand?”
There wasn’t a sound from the company. There were looks of incredulousness, disappointment, anger, and hurt, but not a sound. I wasn’t sure who knocked who down, but we’d see very shortly who had the character to get back up. As I walked to the car, I remembered that Lombardi had said they came back to loving you when you won. Was it really true? Time would quickly tell.
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Little Did I Know Page 22